Javits Rejiggered

Once hailed as the most important job-generating project in New York, a dramatically scaled down plan to expand the Javits Convention Center was approved yesterday by state officials who slashed more than $1 billion from the price tag.

The latest version of the expansion will create just 40,000 square feet of new exhibition space in a plain, pre-engineered structure that is a far cry from the elaborate design created several years ago by British architect Richard Rogers.

Project costs, once estimated at $1.7 billion for the larger expansion, have been slashed to $463 million, most of which will be spent to renovate the current convention center and replace its dark glass windows with clear, energy-efficient panels.

But the project, for now, leaves the city without a convention center capable of holding the largest shows that now head to Chicago, Las Vegas and other venues.

The project will go forward with the possibility of a larger expansion down the line if additional funding becomes available, officials said.

“We are focusing on what we can accomplish with the available funds, without precluding what we can do in the future,” said Barbara Lampen, president of the Javits Development Corp.

Javits, now the 18th- largest exposition center in the nation, had been called woefully undersized to compete for the largest conventions. The earlier expansion would have ranked Javits fifth in the nation in size.

The project, approved by the Empire State Development Corp., drops $700 million in state and city funding that had been part of the original plan. The budget now relies almost entirely on a $1.50-per-night hotel-room fee created to pay for the work.

“Right now, we’re paying for all of it,” said Joseph Spinnato, president of the Hotel Association of New York, which had lobbied hard to expand Javits.

About $390 million of the project’s cost will go just to fix the current convention center, which is deteriorating.

The latest version of the project requires approval of the state’s Public Authorities Control Board. If approved, construction would be complete in 2013.